


Take my hand, let us waltz for the dead

by brightlikeloulou



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25106581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlikeloulou/pseuds/brightlikeloulou
Summary: In a new world ravaged by biters, Anakin Skywalker is fighting for survival when he finds a man who desperately needs his help.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	Take my hand, let us waltz for the dead

**Author's Note:**

> \- i was a massive fan of the walking dead for 2ish years, so lots of inspiration from there  
> \- i don't have an upload schedule, read at your own risk, i just finished this and didn't want it to sit gathering dust in my documents folder  
> \- additional tags to be added  
> \- title is from The Amazing Devil song Farewell Wanderlust  
> \- i have no medical training / i pulled the medical stuff from my ass  
> \- basically i was mad there's no zombie aus in the fandom so i had to have a crack at it myself

Obi-Wan is drenched in sweat, clothes clinging to his body and emitting an odor that mixes unpleasantly with that of rotten flesh and death. Blood pools beneath him as his desperate attempts to clutch at the wound on his thigh and apply pressure do little to stop the bleeding; he can feel his pants becoming wet with it, and he cries out with pain and frustration as he watches the blood seep through his fingers.

His head is pounding, the man that had attacked him minutes earlier by initially hitting him over the head with a baseball bat, lays dead on the concrete ground of the old car yard that Obi-Wan had been sheltering in for the past week. Blood dribbles from the stab wound in his neck and his eyes have fallen closed with death.

The adrenaline that had flooded through him at his first realization that he was being attacked, has worn off now that he knows the danger is gone; the pain in his leg intensifies and it’s getting harder to keep his eyes open. He doesn’t know where the man came from, he hadn’t heard him, and he certainly didn’t have time to ask him while he was fighting for his life; Obi-Wan had had the man up against the wall, choking him, when he’d felt the shooting pain through his thigh, distracted long enough for the man to overpower him, however briefly before Obi-Wan had his own knife plunged into his neck.

Obi-Wan spares a last pitying glance at the man, wonders what his name was, what he did before the outbreak, if he had a family.

He can feel himself bleeding out, and being in his sleep clothes, his belt still attached to his jeans back in the office, he has no way to stop the bleeding; he doesn’t even have strength left in his hands to hold against the wound. He tilts his head back to the sky, to the risen sun, and yells as loud as he can, voice cracking as he does.

He’s going to die, so what does it matter if the biters hear him?

*

It’s chilly of a morning, being late November, it’s definitely getting cooler when the sun hasn’t been up long enough to warm up Oregon. The grass is still wet from overnight dew and the birds sing as they wake, however not as loud as he remembers from before the end of the world.

Anakin has been out since before the sun began to rise, and it’s just before eight am now. He’s been stalking around the streets of his local apartment building, scavenging what supplies he could and scouting the general number of biters and if there was anyone left living. It’s only been two and a half months since the outbreak began, but the world seems like it’s been abandoned for years; he hasn’t been very close to any of the major cities, but there were broadcasts over the radio that many of them had been bombed after they were overwhelmed with biters. Two days after the final bombings, everything went dark, the broadcasts stopped, phone networks went down and most places lost power. There’s no sign of the world going back to normal, from Anakin’s understanding this is how it’s going to stay.

For a brief moment, Anakin wished he was still in the military because if he was, possibly he’d know more about what the fuck was going on.

Artoo is running ahead of him, nose to the ground as he sniffs the dozens of scents scattered around the place. The chocolate lab seems to be in his element these days, there’s always something to keep him busy. Anakin’s had him since he was discharged in May of last year; he’d been on the verge of a break down before his mother could get to him from Arizona, the pain of knowing he was separated from his three best friends that had essentially adopted him as their fourth brother, combined with the amputation of his right arm led him to such an unfamiliar place that he’d jumped at the chance when one of his Facebook friends advertised that they had puppies to sell. He thinks that having a hyperactive 6-week old puppy kept him busy enough to stop himself from drowning in alcohol like he had in his teens.

He’s barely two streets over from his apartment building, his backpack heavier than what it had been when he left, having managed to scavenge from a few places that had been too overrun the previous times he’d been on these streets. He likes to think that he’s familiar with the majority of Coos Bay, having been stationed at the military base since completing his training in both Georgia and South Carolina back when he was nineteen; a shiny as anyone within two years of completing the training was called. However, he feels no security as he wanders the streets, on-edge and jumpy to any sound he thinks might be caused by biters, or people who were taking advantage of the lack of law and weren’t so friendly.

He almost jumps out of his skin when the loud yell of a man rips through the air, coming from not far from him. He unsheathes his Katana within a second, whistles for Artoo and ducks behind a car parked haphazardly on the street. He waits for a few minutes, the lab leaning against his side, as they both scan the car yard fifty meters or so down the street for any movement. When there’s none, and no further yelling, he stands straight and begins his way down the street to the car yard, Artoo following his instructions to stay by his side.

The car yard is surrounded by tall metal fencing, and he can’t see anything from the sidewalk, the display of cars obscuring too much of his view. He re-sheaths his sword as he reaches the main door to the office building and finds it locked, pulling out his gun instead, swearing when a glance through the glass shows that even if he manages to unlock the door, that much crap has been pushed up against it that he wouldn’t be able to get it open without causing a large amount of noise. There’s definitely someone inside, and judging by that yell, they were probably hurt or in danger.

The left side of the building isn’t connected to another building, instead a small alleyway, and he bets there’d be an emergency exit.

Sure enough, there is one, bolted closed with thick chain, but it’s cut open in only seconds, the bolt cutters he carries on him whenever he goes scavenging once again proving their worth. The door squeaks as he tugs it open, and he winces, knowing very well that he could be walking into a death trap, but he’d been moments too late saving people before, and he couldn’t bear guilt eating away at him if he didn’t investigate.

The door connects to a one-way hallway, and it’s dead silent. He follows the hallway into the main area of the building and finds it deserted and ransacked, the cars parked inside have had the glass smashed out of them, along with a few windows that look out to the car yard, and Anakin’s grateful for the leather dog boots he’d put on Artoo’s feet before they left. Desks have been overturned, computers, papers and knickknacks spilt everywhere. The door to the yard is swung open, propped up against an old tire to keep it in place.

What grabs his eye the most, is the ropes tied between two of the three cars, with clothing tossed over them, acting as a makeshift dryer. He steps forward to get a closer look, all while keeping a tight grip on his gun, touching the clothes he finds that they’re all dry, and men’s.

He only notices Artoo has wandered away from him when he hears him nosing open a door, and hurrying after him, he finds that he has made his way into a private office, which seems to have been functioning as someone’s place of residence. There’s a sleeping bag on the floor, a large pack, a few food items, and there’s a shotgun and handgun on the desk. He checks them and finds they’re both loaded; he slips the handgun into his belt and slings the shotgun around his shoulders, wincing when it smashes against the metal handles of the bolt cutters. He freezes and waits for any responding sound, slowly turning on his heels to face the door.

A curse slips from his lips when he realises the door has been pushed open further, and Artoo is no longer in the room, “Fuck’s sake, meant to be fucking trained,” he mumbles as he darts out of the room after the dog, who he can’t see anywhere.

His knuckles turn white where they grip the handle of his gun, swearing as his stomach drops. The bark that he then hears from the car yard is relieving, and also nerve-wracking; biters are attracted to noise, the more of it, the more that come.

Gravel crunches beneath his feet when he skids to a halt after he’s barely through the door. The door leads to a pathway between two rows of cars, and there’s a body laying barely five meters away from where he stands; a middle-aged man, wearing dirty-ripped clothes with blood pouring out of his neck, a hunting-knife half a foot away from his hand. Anakin raises his gun at him even though the paleness of his face and amount of blood makes it obvious that he’s dead.

Artoo whining gets his attention, and he follows the noise; the lab is standing in front of another man who’s slumped up against one of the cars and sniffing his face. The man’s chin is pressed to his chest, one hand in the gravel and the other resting atop his thigh. He’s shirtless and barefoot, only wearing a pair of grey sweats, judging by his initial intake of the scene, it seems that the man against the car was taken by surprise. Anakin steps around the first body and after gently shoving the dog out of the way, kneels down in front of the man.

Now he’s closer, he can see that the mystery man is still breathing so he jumps into action, remembering all of his medical training at once. He grabs the man’s chin and changes the position of his head so he can breathe better and locates the source of the bleeding as a stab wound on the man’s upper left thigh.

The med-kit in his pack is at easy access, and he pulls out the thickest bandages that he has before maneuvering the man to lay on his back, and pulling his sweats down his legs, briefly noticing that on his outer thigh, continuing over his hip under his boxers is a tattoo of roses, the kind you’d typically see on a woman, or at least Anakin has never seen a man with one.

Five minutes later, he’s tended to the man as best he can, and can’t do anything more until he gets him back to his apartment where he has more medical supplies. He’d tightened his own belt around his upper thigh to cut off the circulation, and wound bandages around the stab wound. After putting his pack back on, he hoists the man over his shoulders, groaning at the additional weight before whistling for Artoo.

*

Artoo is snoring softly, curled up in his bed with a full belly and exhausted from their morning of running around. They’d managed to get the mystery man back to the apartment without too much trouble, however the noise the man had made that alerted Anakin of his location, had done the same with the biters and the streets were getting more crowded by the minute.

Anakin’s sitting at the breakfast bar, eating canned soup as he stares at the man on his couch. It’s been four hours since they got back to the apartment, and the man’s still unconscious, which Anakin isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or not. If the man were to wake up, he’d be in a great deal of pain since he’d had to disinfect his wound with alcohol and then cauterize it, and the only pain meds Anakin had were capsules, and aren’t very powerful. However, the man had lost a lot of blood and had begun to strike a fever, and if he were to regain consciousness, it would give Anakin a little more faith in his survival.

Anakin had pulled the handcuffs out of his nightstand that he’d used on a few interesting sexual encounters and used them on the man, along with tying rope around his feet. He couldn’t risk the man dying in his sleep and turning, biting and ultimately killing Anakin or gravely wounding Artoo, even if he was immune to his bite.

Now that Anakin felt reasonably safe, he was able to get a good look at the man he’d stuck his neck out for. He’s older than Anakin, probably mid-thirties and handsome, in a ‘hot-professor you have a crush on’ kind of way, with reddish-auburn hair that’s growing out of what he’s sure was a stylish cut, with a matching beard that’s in a similar state. He didn’t have any ID on him, and Anakin didn’t have time to go through his belongings back in the office, so he didn’t know the man’s name or exact age.

“I wonder what kind of guy you are,” Anakin muses aloud, sitting the now-empty soup can down on the counter as he stands, eyes flickering over the blood smeared across the man’s face and chest. After collecting a cloth and a small container that he poured some of his precious water into, he sits on the coffee table and begins cleaning the blood off him.

He observes him as he does, if it weren’t for the paleness of his face and the obvious wound on his leg, one would think he was just in a deep sleep. He had a few small scars across his chest, nothing that seemed like they had an interesting story behind them, probably just from youthful recklessness. The tattoo that Anakin had seen earlier on his thigh also wasn’t his only one, on his left inner forearm in new, fine black ink is all of the planets dangling on strings from a woman’s hand. Anakin himself only has one tattoo, a small heart on his left ass cheek that was the consequence of too much alcohol and losing a bet to one his best friend Rex.

Anakin finds himself hoping that the man will live, because if he does, and he’s a decent person, Anakin won’t be alone in this new world. Sure, he has Artoo and he loves him with all his heart, but there’s a big difference between a human and a dog, the main one being that Artoo can’t talk back.

The sigh that falls from Anakin’s lips is heavy and pained as he stands and makes his way back into the kitchen, stuffing the container and cloth into the large garbage bag by the barricaded door, which he slumps up against afterward. A soft thud echoes across the apartment as he knocks his head back against the wooden door and resists the urge to scream.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments & inspire me to write more! 
> 
> feel free to come talk to me about the fic at my tumblr @iiloulouii


End file.
